Western Perceptions of Russian and Soviet Designs of International Law at the Hague Conferences and the Nuremberg Trial

At first glance, western perceptions of Russia and the USSR seem to be a very clear-cut topic: Russia and the Soviet Union have always been  imagined as the other to underpin western notions of civilisation and progress. This paper aims to take a fresh look at western views on
Russia and the USSR on the field of international law. Its main objective is to try to locate Russia and the USSR on the western map of international law in a way which will not merely reproduce the pattern of Us-and-Them. Therefore, the papers’ topics are western governmental, juridical and public discourses on Russian and Soviet treatments of international law. The paper will address these questions: Which topics dominated governmental, legal and public discourses on Russian and Soviet designs of international law? Do these three discourses significantly differ from each other or are there any crosscurrents? Were these discourses only means of othering or were there any entanglements between the West and Russia, respectively the USSR? Finally, a comparison between the two times, which the panel connects, has to be made. How differs the situation of 1945/46 to that of around 1900 and where was the Soviet Union situated on the western map of international law compared to Russia’s position around 1900? The place of Russia and the Soviet Union in developing and applying international law tests the widely-held assumption, especially prominent in neo-liberal readings, that only states with a strong liberal tradition and a developed civil society advance international law. The fact that the most prominent advocate of extending the laws of land warfare was the most illiberal state among the Great Powers, while the most classically liberal state — Great Britain — was opposed to the codification of these laws, raises serious questions about the validity of neo-liberal interpretations.